


a narrow gate

by saltedpin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Backstory, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Monks!, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, flirting via fruit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-06-29 15:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15732711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/pseuds/saltedpin
Summary: He has always been afraid of how desperately he wants the things he wants. The Teachings have always said that feeding the parts of the soul that hunger is a dangerous path.





	a narrow gate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Koraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koraki/gifts).



> This is a bit of a combination of several of your prompts and not quite the unadulterated fluff I set out to write, but I hope it does the trick for you anyway! 
> 
> No names in this, since with names being sacred in Ishvalan culture my general thought is that most people, even within families, are addressed by title or by relation to you, and names are reserved for special occasions. 
> 
> Thanks to Apathy and rabbit_habits for the beta, and to Tanukiham for helping me out when I was in a jam. All mistakes are mine.

The tang of sweat is sharp on his tongue as the sun beats down, the sand hot and dry against the soles of his feet. He blinks, resisting the urge to wipe his brow – even that small movement would be his undoing – but as it is, even the blink is enough. In the next moment he feels the strong grip of fingers around his wrist, twisting his arm down, and then his legs are swept out from under him and he lands with a _thud_ on his back, staring up at the unbroken blue of the sky, his shoulder aching and the breath knocked from his lungs. 

“Concentrate.” 

His master’s voice is low and quiet, but he feels its reprimand all the more keenly for it. He grits his teeth as he rises, rubbing at his wrist. He can still feel five points of pressure against his skin, five fingertips pressed against the inside of his wrist and a lingering warmth in his veins.

He aches – the shoulder he has landed on now more times than he can count, the muscles in his legs after standing for so many hours in the blistering sun. But that is the point: the pain is the point. The point is that pain does not even need to be ignored, because it can be endured. 

Swallowing, he raises his head to face his opponent once more.

Only the quirk of his eyebrow and the slight twitch of his lip as he raises his hands once more in readiness give away how pleased his opponent is.

 _Concentrate,_ he tells himself, watching as a bead of sweat crawls slowly down the side of his opponent’s neck before catching in the rough material of the collar of his robes and disappearing.

The first strike, when it comes, catches him off-guard, and he barely has time to move his head to avoid it. By the time he realises it was a feint it’s too late, and the heel of a palm catches him in the jaw, jarring his neck and making his teeth clack together, catching his tongue between them.

He tastes blood in his mouth as anger rises within him; when the other novice's foot hooks into his knee, he feels the anger explode into rage, the beating sun and the ache in his shoulder and the humiliation of having been beaten _again_ overcoming him. Before he can fall he reaches out, grabbing a handful of the novice’s robes and pulling – and has the satisfaction of feeling the novice lose his footing, his knee giving way, and following him down in a spray of warm sand and tangled legs, breath hot against his ear.

The feeling of triumph that blooms in his chest is short-lived; the move was illegal, and more than that, it defeats the point of the exercise, and the shame that wells up in his heart is not worth the moment of surprise he saw in the other novice’s eyes. 

“Stand. Both of you.”

He swallows again as he scrambles to his feet, not even bothering to wipe the sand from his robes. Beside him, his opponent does the same, eyes downcast, cheeks red, breath heavy. 

Their master is silent, but he can read his displeasure in every line of his face. There is no need for words.

“That is enough for today. Go.”

They bow, turning to leave, heads still lowered. He has only taken one step when he hears his master's voice behind him once more.

“Novice. Wait a moment.”

Even though they are all called _novice_ here, he knows to which of them the words are addressed. He halts, turning back. He cannot raise his eyes.

The silence seems to stretch on for a long time, the air between them growing heavy before his master speaks again.

“We spoke last time of this.”

“Yes, Master.”

He feels shame burning his cheeks. His throat is tight.

“Do I need to speak of it again?”

“No, Master.”

He waits, trying to still his breathing, ignoring the thump of his heart against his chest.

“Then go.”

 

*

 

The sun is setting by the time he leaves to return back home; the sky is red and vast, and the shadows stretch for miles, black on the pale stone of the bare avenues.

It is almost curfew, and he needs to hurry if he wants to be home in good time. As he passes a corner he sees a flash of blue uniforms and blond hair, and his lip curls involuntarily. As his shadow passes over the soldiers, one of them looks up and calls out to him. Though he doesn't understand the words, the tone is clear enough and made clearer still when the man turns and spits on the ground. 

He hunches his shoulders and walks on, refusing to acknowledge the simmering in the pit of his stomach. It hasn't gone away since the sparring match, but has sat within him like a stone. 

The front door of their house creaks as he opens it; it doesn't extend quite down to the floor, and dirt has blown into the room where his brother has forgotten to stop it up with rags. He bends down to do it himself, scraping as much of the sand back outside as he can. He half-expects to find his brother hunched over at the table reading by the light of their single candle and is almost surprised when he finds him in the kitchen instead, stirring a pot of something that smells unappetising, though he is too hungry to care much.

He tells himself that the sting in his chest isn't disappointment; it would be terrible and unworthy and wrong to have _wanted_ to pick a fight.

His brother looks up as he enters, the last of the sunlight catching on his glasses through the kitchen window before he turns back to the pot.

It has been just them in the house for weeks now. Their parents are away chasing the seasonal work that will dry up when the summer ends – the work they do so he can continue his training and his brother can continue his studies.

“Will you clear the table?”

He doesn’t answer but goes to the table and begins clearing away the piles of books and papers that cover it. He doesn’t understand half of what's here – is his brother teaching himself Xingese now? – and he almost snaps the books closed without regard for where his brother might be up to but relents at the last moment, sliding scraps of notes between the pages to keep his place. 

Later, after they’ve finished eating the stew – which had tasted better than it smelled – and they sit in silence across the table from each other, his brother asks him, “How was training today?”

He glances up, surprised, and is tempted not to answer. But in the end, he swallows, trying to see the question for what it is – an extended olive branch after the argument they had had this morning, when his brother had told him he was much too young to decide to commit himself to the priesthood.

They have been living in an uneasy truce since their parents left; he pretends not to see the things on the pages of the books his brother is studying, and his brother, mostly, doesn’t tell him that he thinks he should wait another year to begin his training, doesn’t frown and look at him over his glasses when he leaves in the morning having eaten nothing but a piece of dark bread. 

His brother will come to understand, in time. He is certain of it. He wishes he could explain it, to make him understand: how the world unfolds in all its beauty in the words of Ishvala and how he does not need to seek for meaning in anything else. There is certainly nothing in Amestris, with their blasphemous alchemy and blood-soaked history, that he wants, and Xing and Aerugo require money before they will let people cross their borders. In any case, he cannot imagine what they could contain that he might need. 

“Training was... good,” he says at last, looking up; he hopes his brother failed to notice his hesitation, but he can already see his sceptically raised eyebrow.

“Good?”

He swallows. “I failed.”

This is something else he wishes he could make his brother understand. But how can he? His brother has always been calm, measured; he always thinks before he speaks. How could he possibly understand it?

“I don’t remember reading anything about failure in the Book of Ishvala,” his brother says, voice soft, the slightest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

He looks down, feeling his face heat, thinking of the way he’d been so easily beaten, of the way that the older novice had smiled as he landed on his back in the dirt. 

“ _If a man falls down, he rises up again. And if a man goes the wrong way, he turns around and comes back,_ ” his brother says, quoting flawlessly from a book that he sometimes doubts his brother even believes in. “Is that correct?” he is kind enough to add after a moment's silence.

“Yes,” he says softly, looking down at his wrist, at the five faint shadows beginning to form beneath his skin. “That’s correct.”

 

*

 

_A monk practices serenity, self-restraint, knowledge, humility and forgiveness._

_A monk understands that all things, seen and unseen, flow from Ishvala and Ishvala alone._

_A monk always questions themselves, ‘Why have I walked this path?’ A monk who does not ask it has ceased to be a monk._

_A monk is peaceful, but stalwart in battle._

_A monk abides in Ishvala alone._

_A monk seeks no indulgences, in the body, in the mind, in the heart –_

“May I sit here?”

He jerks his head up from where it has been bent over the list of tenets to be memorised to see the novice from yesterday standing above him, silhouetted by the light of the library lantern.

He blinks, nodding, clearing aside the papers he has been studying. They will be tested on the _101 Tenets for Novitiates_ at the end of the week, but he has found it difficult to concentrate, the words blurring together on the page. The interruption is irritating, but there are few places available in the library this close to –

“I wanted to apologise. To you.”

This time he raises his head in surprise as the novice sits down across from him, head bowed. “Apologise?”

The novice’s shoulders hunch slightly, his fingers – long, calloused – picking at the long sleeve of his robe.

“For yesterday.” He raises his eyes, wincing. “Master said I was... arrogant. That I was too focused on winning. I could have shown you the move or given you a chance to see what I was doing, but instead I....” He doesn’t have to say it. _Beat you. Seven times._

“It’s... fine,” he says, as he feels shame creeping up his throat. He should have been the one to apologise. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was... I lost my temper. I’m sorry.”

The novice laughs and raises his hand to run his fingers through his hair. “Then we’re both sorry. And I can tell Master I’ll be more careful to find opportunities for patience in future.”

It has been some time since he has seen someone smile – or at least smile in such a wide, unguarded way – and for a moment he does not know how to respond. He swallows and feels his breath hitch in his chest.

“Patience,” he says, and then immediately feels stupid. He looks down, his eyes falling on his wrist; the bruises of yesterday have fully bloomed now, a dark circle against his skin. Across from him, the novice shifts in his seat.

“I could show you, if you like,” the novice says suddenly. “How to break that hold. Until last year, I studied in Daliha.”

He says it as if this explains everything, and perhaps it does. The temple in Daliha is known for turning out skilled warriors, just as the temple here in Kanda is known for its scholars. 

“You’re from Daliha, then? Your family is from there?” he asks, and perhaps that explains other things too, like why he doesn’t recognise him from the crowd of children he had known, growing up fighting and scrounging in the back alleys of this city. He isn’t sure why he’s so certain he’d remember him, but –

“I was raised in the temple,” the novice replies, his smile quickly evaporating, his tone guarded, as if he’s waiting for a question he doesn’t want to answer.

He doesn’t need to ask it, though. He understands what he means: children with no families are raised in temples. Unwanted, orphaned or just unable to be kept, every child will find a home in Ishvala’s house. 

He licks his lips and tries to find some safer path. “Why did they send you here?” 

The novice cocks his head slightly. “For patience,” he answers after what seems like a long moment of silence, and doesn’t elaborate. 

 

*

 

“Why did you choose this path?” he asks the novice when they have finished sparring and the dusk is beginning to descend over the training grounds. They have stayed back after the other novices have departed, sitting with their backs against the temple wall in a way they would be chastised for were any master to see them.

They are both breathless and sweaty, and his shoulder aches from the number of times he has landed on it, but he is improving; he has learned how to break the hold, how to counter it, moving like the water the novices are told they must emulate when they fight. He has heard it many times, the master speaking as he moves between their ranks: _Water finds the easiest path, but it still destroys all that stands in its way. Sometimes swiftly, sometimes over the course of years. But in the end, it prevails._

The novice does not answer immediately. 

“I was raised in the temple,” he says at last, well after the sun has begun to disappear beneath the crest of the horizon. “What else was there for me to do?”

He opens his mouth but cannot think of what to say. It had not been the answer he had been expecting: it does not seem that anyone who takes to every task so easily, who almost never receives a reprimand from any master, who is easily the best of them all, should have any answer other than, _Because it was the path Ishvala directed me to._

“And you?” the novice asks. 

He blinks, keeping his eyes focused on the slowly sinking sun, unsure of how to answer. What can he say? It seems difficult to tell the truth: that he had begun to come to the temple because it was the easiest place to run to after he had had yet another argument with his brother over things he cannot remember now but that had seemed important at the time; that watching the monks in their meditation had made him yearn to be among them, to have the kind of peace he saw on their faces and the kind of strength he saw in their bodies, the kind of strength that could protect Ishval and its people. 

“I... was too angry,” he says at last, his words halting. “About... everything.”

It is the truth – and he sometimes wonders if he has made any progress at all. Sometimes, he can still feel his anger as if it is a hot coal sitting inside his heart.

Beside him, the novice shifts, and he seems about to say something, before the call for curfew rings out over the town: once in Ishvalan and then again in Amestrian, the words distorted through the town speakers. 

As the crackle of the speakers dies away, the novice lets out a long slow breath before turning his head to glance at him. “Some things are worth being angry about.”

 

* 

 

The dying days of summer are always the hottest, and there is no one on the streets during the height of the day; the markets only open in the darkness just before dawn, though the heat still hangs heavy in the air.

It seems there are more and more Amestrian soldiers with every passing week. They stand at the corners of the morning markets before the sun is fully up, hands on their rifles and eyes on the crowd, watchful and tense, sweating in their dark blue uniforms. 

He always ignores them, or at the very least, he resists the urge to return their stares, keeping his eyes on what he's buying and the faces of his fellow Ishvalans. But even they can’t stop their eyes sliding nervously to where the soldiers stand, as if they are waiting for something to happen.

His brother spends all day with his books, reading them by the slanting light that filters through the closed shutters. It is the last summer before his brother will have to put aside his books and join his parents in chasing work on Amestrian farms, or else look for something in Gunja or Daliha; there is not a lot of work here in Kanda. And it is the last summer before his own master will decide if he will continue with his training, or if Ishvala intends him for some other path.

This morning, he had left for the markets even earlier than usual; his brother had been asleep, slumped over the kitchen table with his head resting on an open book, a lamp glowing gently beside him. He had hesitated, his hand hovering over his shoulder, and then he had left him where he was.

The markets are already bustling when he reaches them, draped in the pale pre-dawn light, but even so he can make out the small knot of senior novices who move through the crowd, collecting the temple’s daily supplies. Some will go towards feeding the monks and novices who live at the temple; most will be taken and distributed to the poor who live on the outskirts of the city. He does not like to admit that he and his brother are, perhaps, a few cens away from needing it themselves.

He sees the novice before the novice sees him; he watches as he leans down to lift a box laden with fruit from where it sits by a stall, ready for collection. The novice rests it easily against his side, balanced on his tilted hip as he thanks the stall owner and turns.

He does not have a name for the clench in his chest when the novice’s eyes fall on him and he smiles, that same wide, unguarded smile as that first day in the library, and inclines his head as if in invitation. 

He buys what he needs – grains and fruit; no meat, because it’s a fast day – and the novice collects the stall keepers’ donations. He watches as the novice laughs easily with the sellers, smiling and thanking them for their generosity. The novice slips his arm from the sleeve of his robe in order to accept a box of eggs from a stall keeper, sliding them inside the pocket he has created, and he quickly, unaccountably, has to look away, staring down at the piled figs before him. 

They sit in rows, dark purple and glistening with drops of moisture as the morning warmth grows. He cannot remember the last time he ate one – they had always been a treat, something for special occasions. His parents had given them to him on his name day, but since they have been absent.... 

Perhaps something of his thoughts shows on his face, because the novice glances up at him, cocking his head. “Will you buy some?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. “Too expensive. And besides, my brother doesn’t like them.”

The novice laughs at that. “I agree with him. Too many seeds.”

They continue on, until the sun gets higher and the stall keepers begin to pack up, and it becomes harder to linger in the streets. Nonetheless, he hesitates before saying he should be getting back. 

“You can come with me, if you like,” the novice says, as he begins to turn away to head back to his home. He glances up, and the novice quickly adds, “I’m sure Master would be happy to have another pair of hands.”

For a moment, he is tempted – it would be for the temple, wouldn’t it? – and then immediately feels ashamed for having tried to dress selfishness as piety. “I shouldn’t,” he says. “My brother gets grumpy without his coffee.” And having said that, he feels disloyal, as if he has revealed some secret he ought to have kept to himself.

But the novice just laughs and says, “Yes. My old master was the same.” He looks up, squinting into the early morning sun. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” he says, as the novice heads up the steps that lead to the temple. 

He is ten paces away before he hears the novice call, “Hey!” and turns – he raises his hand without thinking to catch what he has thrown to him, and it isn’t until he looks down that he realises it is a fig, firm and cool against his palm.

By the time he looks up, the novice is already halfway up the steps, straight-backed despite the heavy load of food he is carrying. The novice doesn’t look back, but he stands and watches until he’s out of sight before he turns away.

The fig is still a little unripe, crisp and sour, but he eats it as he walks home. He can’t bring himself to feel guilty, even as the taste lingers on his tongue, since his brother doesn’t like figs anyway – but also because it had been given to _him_. Perhaps it is wrong; perhaps he should have waited and at least asked his brother if he wanted to share. But the fig had been a gift. He can’t remember the last time he had received a gift. 

His brother wakes when he comes in the door, the taste of the fig still sharp on his tongue; he sits up, blinking groggily, before croaking out, “Did you get coffee?”

He brews it and brings it over to the table, and his brother cradles the warm cup in his hands despite the heat that’s already crawling through the air, before taking a long, deep drink, eyes closed. When he’s done, he rubs his fingers against his eyes and sighs. “I’m sorry I wasn’t awake to come to the market with you.”

“It’s fine,” he says. As he speaks, a fig seed that had hidden itself beneath his tongue rises into his mouth; he swallows, hoping his brother can’t somehow detect the spring of tension that coils in his belly. 

 

*

 

“Should we be here?”

The novice half-turns to look at him over his shoulder, haloed by the dust motes that drift through the scant sunlight. “Why not?”

 _Because we have been told not to_ is one answer; _Because it is dangerous_ is another.

But in the end, he says neither and edges his way across the wooden boards that form a bridge over the vast darkness below them.

It is not as if there isn’t a good reason the town’s old clock tower has been abandoned; the outside might look like the same sturdy white stone as the temple and the council hall, but the inside is a mass of stairs made of splintering wood, warped by the heat during summer and rotted by the rains during the wet season. The doors have long been boarded up – but it’s easy enough to gain entry to, as he had discovered when the novice, having asked if he wanted to go walking after training, had led him here and moved aside some boards to reveal a hole in one of the walls just big enough to crawl through.

 _I want to show you something,_ the novice had said, and this, for some reason, had been enough to quell the objection rising in his throat.

Inside, the tower smells of deeply layered dust and rotting wood, and the only light is whatever can trickle in through the gaps in the boarded windows, but it seems the novice knows his way through the maze of broken-down walls and fallen beams. He follows him across gaps where the stairs have fallen away, leaning against the sun-warmed stone of the walls.

“It’s not far now. Just here.”

The novice throws a small smile over his shoulder before hauling himself up onto a rickety platform that shakes as he stands and then turns, dust and pieces of stone cascading into the darkness below. He hesitates, but the novice leans down and reaches out a hand to him – he takes it before he can think, feeling the novice’s warm fingers encircling his wrist and pulling him up. He comes up more quickly than perhaps either of them expected, because when he gains a foothold and stands, the wooden beams creaking beneath his feet, there is a moment when he brushes against the novice’s side, the back of his hand pressed against the rough cloth of his robe, a jolt of warmth and solidity against him. For a moment, he feels as if his breath has been driven from his lungs as something warm uncurls inside him. But it is only a moment, and then the novice steps back, turning away, though not before he sees his throat dip as he swallows, a warm flush creeping across his cheek... but it’s a hot day, and they have been climbing.

“What did you want to show me?” 

The novice glances at him, and there is a brief flash of teeth as he smiles. “This.”

Wood creaks as he moves aside a series of boards nailed together, and then the deep gold of sunset floods into the darkness of the tower. He blinks, momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness, and then the novice’s fingers are on his wrist once more, drawing him forward into the light, and the world opens up beneath them, illuminated in the dark red glow of the dying day. 

The rickety wooden platform beneath his feet has been replaced by the firmness of stone. They are standing on the small sill of the highest window of the tower – there’s no rail, nothing to protect them from falling down to the rocks that jut out from the sand below if they were to lose their footing.

“Come on. Sit.”

He lowers himself – it’s small enough that his shoulder jostles the novice’s as he sits, their thighs pressing against one another’s as they dangle their legs over the side of the window. This high up there is a breeze that moves gently through the air, softly cooling the sweat on his forehead after the smothering heat of the tower’s interior; from here, it is possible to see everything: every darkened window flickering to life, the wave of laundry strung between buildings, the people who emerge onto the streets as the sun sinks lower and the dusk comes on. Here, he thinks, it is almost possible to understand what the masters mean when they say, _The entire world rests within the bosom of Ishvala._

Beside him, the novice shifts; suddenly the world laid out below him seems to narrow, and he blinks, his throat feeling too tight.

“There weren’t so many novices at the temple in Daliha,” the novice says, his voice quiet in the vastness of the space before them. “It was easier to find a place to be alone. Here, I had to go looking.”

He laughs at that – a short, surprised laugh, because he cannot help himself. He has lived his whole life here in Kanda, and it has never once occurred to him to climb into this tower – _probably,_ a voice within reminds him, _because it is forbidden_ – nor to seek out such a place. He is used to the close press of bodies, to the crowded streets and windows that look into other windows. He has never known anything else. 

But once he realises what the novice is actually telling him, he feels ashamed at how long it has taken him to understand – that this is somewhere he comes when he wants no company, that this is a place that had been his alone.

“Thank you,” he says, after a moment’s pause. “I’m sorry I laughed. It just seemed –”

“Stop. I understand,” the novice says, but he is smiling. 

The novice reaches into his robes, and when he withdraws his hand he is holding a small apricot, its skin as red and gold as the sunlit clouds. 

“I’m sorry I could only get the one,” he says, glancing up as he bites into its flesh, juice running down the side of his hand and over his wrist. “But we can share.” 

The novice holds it out, and he takes it – he curls his fingers around it as if it is something precious before biting into it, just where the novice’s mouth had been only a moment before. It’s sweet and ripe, and the juice soothes his dust-parched throat. He feels a hand on his shoulder and the ghost of a breath on the side of his neck; he swallows and keeps looking out over the city and does not turn his head. 

He almost does not dare to breathe. Within him, he can feel his heart, and he feels a sense of something slipping away from him – something that will escape all the faster if he tries to close his hand around it. 

They remain where they are until darkness purples the sky, and the novice says softly, “If we don’t go down now, we’ll miss curfew.”

Later that night, he looks down at his wrist where the novice had grasped him, almost expecting to see it ringed by bruises, as it had been that first day when they had met at the training ground. But there is nothing there, nothing to show where the novice had touched him at all. 

 

*

 

When he wakes, it’s to the memory of a hand on his shoulder, warm and sure. The sheets that wind around his legs are soaked through with sweat.

He rolls over as his heartbeat drags his blood through his veins and groans against the pillow. Closing his eyes, he recites the tenets in his mind –

_A monk practices serenity, self-restraint, knowledge, humility and forgiveness._

_A monk understands that all things, seen and unseen, flow from Ishvala and Ishvala alone._

_A monk abides in Ishvala alone._

_A monk seeks no indulgences, in the body, in the mind, in the heart –_

He swallows, curling over on himself, and waits for the heat within him to subside. He has always been afraid of how desperately he wants the things he wants. The Teachings have always said that feeding the parts of the soul that hunger is a dangerous path. Wanting too much, wanting things to be different that cannot, should not, be changed... isn’t this how such blasphemies as alchemy are born? Is this not why he had chosen this path to begin with? And walking it requires all things – his mind, his breath, his body – to be Ishvala’s. 

There is no room for anything else. 

As he sits up, the shaft of sunlight that streams through a gap in the shutters falls across his face; the sun is fully up, and he has slept too late. 

Standing, he does his best to ignore the thickness between his thighs and makes his way to the washstand in the corner, splashing the cool water over the back of his neck, washing away the sweat and grit. 

_A monk seeks no indulgences, in the body, in the mind, in the heart._

His shoulder feels cold where he had felt a hand resting in his dreams, and he closes his eyes and draws in a breath, before scrubbing his hand over his skin, as if to wash the memory away. 

 

*

 

Sometimes he worries the well of anger within him has been driven so deep that it will never run dry. 

It is always there, sometimes buried deep in his heart, sometimes throbbing through his veins like something living. It can be endured; that is what he has been learning over these past months. It can be felt and it can be endured, and he does not have to let it dictate the actions of his body. He had wanted his steps to be guided – he had wanted to find a path he could take through life that was sure and stable and firm. He had believed he had found it in the temple, a shelter from the things about himself he felt he could not control. 

But _this_ is something different, and everything he has learned does not seem to help him; he does not know how to defend himself from this hunger, from the memory of the warm breath that had been against his face for that one long second, and the phantom feeling of the novice’s thigh pressed against his own. 

The next time his eyes meet the novice’s on the training ground, he drops his gaze and turns away.

 

*

 

He feels the press of whispers against his back when he goes to the markets now, as if they have a physical presence, coming to life the moment they are uttered, following him and clinging to his skin as he walks. 

_He’s training to be a priest, but his brother –_

_They say he shuts himself up all day with his books – books that no one should ever –_

_He was so talented in school, but now –_

_He hasn’t been to the temple since –_

He tries to close his ears to them – he ignores their stares and keeps his eyes on the ground before him, watching the grains of sand as they whisper past his feet. He speaks to no one, except to thank to the stall keepers as he buys what they will need for the day ahead. He repeats to himself, _A monk practices serenity, self-restraint, knowledge, humility and forgiveness._ But as he thinks it, his stomach twists, and he knows that he is in no position to forgive anyone. And his brother....

He hunches his shoulders. Fear and disgust twine within him. Whatever his brother is doing, he does not want to think about it. 

Passing the stall keeper the last of his coins, he mutters his thanks and turns, only for his eyes to fall on an old man, someone he does not know, his hand raised to cover his mouth as he whispers to the woman sitting next to him.

He does not know what they are talking of; it may well be harmless. But something about the man’s pointing finger, the woman’s narrowed eyes, makes the spark of anger within him burst into an open flame. 

“What?” he asks, knowing that his voice is loud even amongst the chattering voices of the morning market but not finding it within himself to care. 

The woman does not look up, her hands busy arranging bowls of dates, but the man continues to stare, his eyes hard, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“Do you have an accusation to make against my brother?” he says, meeting the man’s eyes. Vaguely, he is aware of people stopping, of the curious glances of the passersby, but he ignores them, standing rooted to the spot – until finally the man drops his head, his lips moving in a silent mutter. 

He remains where he is, frozen, his shopping clutched against his chest, his heartbeat roaring in his ears. It seems a long time until he can will himself to move again, but then he runs, leaving the market behind him and turning down the small alley to their house. It is not far, and he has barely exerted himself, but still he feels breathless when he finally closes the door behind him, his heart crushed in a vice, the muscles of his legs aching as he leans back, bracing himself against the wood of the door. 

He isn’t sure how long he has stood there before the smell of cooking wafts to him from the kitchen. Swallowing, he pushes himself away from the door and makes his way through the house until he finds his brother. His hair is still messy from sleep, his glasses balanced unevenly on his nose as he shifts frying eggs and meat around a pan over the stove.

His brother looks up, smiling, as he enters, and says, “I’m glad you’re home – I’ve made breakfast.” Perhaps he sees something in his face, because then he pauses, glancing down uncertainly at the meat. “It’s not a fast day, is it?”

 _You should know whether it is or not,_ are the words that spring into his mind, but he forces himself to swallow them down, shaking his head. “No. It’s not.”

“Ah. That’s a relief.” 

He does not answer, putting the food he has bought away as his brother scrapes the eggs and meat onto plates. 

He is hungrier than he thought, and he eats quickly without looking up, cleaning up the yolk from the egg and the fat from the meat with a slice of bread, grateful for the fact that his brother says nothing – at least, not until they have both finished eating.

“Do you have training today?”

He does not look up. “Yes.” He swallows. “From next week I’ll be on duty in the temple. I’ll need to sleep there.”

“Oh,” his brother says. “I see.”

“I bought extra food,” he says. “You should be fine until I get back.”

His brother sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking down at his empty plate. “I’ve left you to do so many things. But I really feel that I’m on the edge of something, of understanding why....” He trails off, before shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. Perhaps you being away will be good for me – force me to get out of the house.” He glances up, a small smile on his lips. “Will your friend be there?”

His heart feels as if it has stopped in his chest. “My... friend?”

His brother’s grin is wide. “You know who I mean – the friend who came back from the markets with you that time. I thought perhaps he had been busy lately, because you’ve been spending more time here at home.” 

“I....” He pauses, staring down at his hands, his fingertips pressed into the wood of the table.

“What do you call him by?”

He swallows. “We’re all called ‘novice’ –”

“I know that.” His brother leans in, still smiling. “I just thought –”

“No. It’s not like that.” He can feel heat creeping up his throat. 

His brother cocks his head. “No? Well, I suppose you still have a year until you take your vows –”

He stands up suddenly, face flushing, fists clenched by his sides. His brother looks up at him, eyes wide with surprise.

“It’s not like that,” he repeats, voice higher and louder than he means it to be, heart hammering in his chest.

His brother blinks, opening his mouth and then closing it again, before visibly pulling himself back from whatever it was his first impulse to say.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment, raising a hand and running it over his face. “I just... I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” He sighs. “You always just seem so... so eager to grow up. I wish I could... I don’t know. Protect you from that. For just a little while longer.”

He closes his eyes, guilt rising within him. But still, he cannot bring himself to raise his eyes and look his brother in the face.

 

*

 

He has been on duty in the temple this week, sweeping the stone floors and burying the still-smoking ends of the incense in sand when meditations are over.

He had thought it would help, perhaps – the chores are supposed to help focus the mind; the peace of the temple imbues the soul with serenity. He has looked for both focus and serenity during this week but has found neither. It has been difficult, when he expects to turn at any moment and see the novice’s eyes on him, staring from across one of the temple’s stone hallways or from the darkness of the meditation chamber.

It has not happened, and he feels ashamed for being so preoccupied with what might have occurred if it had – but also for the fact that he has behaved in so cowardly a way.

He has not spoken to the novice since they went to the tower; he had not known what he would say or whether he could even begin to explain why he thought he should not be near him. How can he explain it? A monk abides in Ishvala alone: attachment to others only clouds the mind and makes it impossible to pass through the narrow gate that He has opened. And yet, whenever he thinks of it, he also hears his brother’s voice in his head and his words, _You still have a year until you take your vows_ ; and for a moment, he remembers the feel of the novice’s breath on his cheek as they sat beside each other in the tower window, and he wonders what might have happened if he had turned his head.

He shakes his head, trying to dispel the thought as he pulls the finished incense sticks from their bowl of sand, upturning them to put out any lingering sparks. Smoke wreathes his wrist as they breathe their last, their sweet scent rising into the half-light of the room.

It is the last task he needs to perform before he can return tonight – to his home, to his brother. He has been worried about him and whether he has been remembering to eat these last few days. He sometimes becomes so caught up in his books that –

“Have you been avoiding me?”

He starts at the sound of the voice behind him, half-turning and almost sending the bowl of sand clattering to the floor. Of course he knows who it is, even though they are standing in the thick shadow by the doorway; even if he hadn’t recognised the voice, he would still know from the way his pulse suddenly speeds up in his throat, until he can feel it throbbing against the collar of his robe.

“I –” he begins – but in all honesty, he does not know what he means to say or what he _can_ say.

“That was a stupid question, I suppose.” The novice comes forward, stepping into the shaft of light that descends from the skylight in the peak of the domed ceiling. He watches him, swallowing, uncertainty rising within him. He had expected to see anger in the novice’s eyes when, eventually, he knew they would have to confront each other once more, but to actually see it simmering there now sends a chill through his heart.

“I didn’t want –” he begins, but the words die on his tongue. He is still unsure of what he wants to say: he cannot say that he is sorry, nor can he say he didn’t mean to do it. Both would be untrue. But the truth is something he does not think he can put into words.

“I thought we were... friends,” the novice says, still standing in the sunlight. He does not miss the slight catch in his voice, and he swallows.

“We are,” he says, when he can find his voice, when his throat loosens enough to let it pass.

The novice takes a step towards him, lip twisting. “Then why –” He cuts himself off, shaking his head. “No. I won’t ask. I know why.” He looks down again, staring at the stone floor. “I’m sorry.” 

He blinks, a sudden cold panic surging through him as the novice turns to go, his eyes downcast, his mouth still twisted.

“Wait,” he says before he can think, reaching after him, the tips of his fingers catching in the sleeve of his robe.

The novice stops and turns. He loosens his grip as soon as he realises what he is doing, but before he can draw back, the novice’s hand shoots out, his fingers curling around his upper arm, warm and firm, and stops him where he is, frozen, their eyes locked. They are so close that if the novice leaned in they would share a breath. This close, he can see the faint lines beside the novice’s eyes, the flicker of his eyelashes, the indentation of his lower lip, can feel the warmth that he exudes as though under his skin burns a fire.

He does not dare to believe he sees understanding in the novice’s eyes, and so he drops his gaze, staring down at where the novice’s fingers dig into his upper arm. It seems impossible that the novice could know what has ached within him since that day in the tower – or before that, even, though he would not have recognised it for what it was – or that he can understand what now seethes within his soul. It must be plain on his face, he thinks; it must be clear in his eyes, in the way he cannot raise his head to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quietly enough that if the novice hadn’t been standing so close to him he most likely would not have heard it, and he feels the novice’s fingers twitch where they press into his arm.

He might have said something more, but in the next moment the novice darts forward and presses their lips together. He could have jerked his head aside or turned his face away, and for a sickening moment he thinks he might – but he doesn't, instead letting his eyes slide shut as his heart hammers in his ears, his stomach twisting into a tight coil within him.

The novice’s lips are chapped from the wind and the sun, but he tastes sweet and sharp, the scent of his sweat and the soft curl of the incense combining; and while it is easy to think _We should not,_ it is far harder than he ever could have imagined to pull away, to remind himself that he should not seek this, should not _want_ this. For as long as he can remember he has only ever wanted to be a monk, only ever wanted to abide in Ishvala and Ishvala alone.

He can feel the tide of his blood as it swells within him, drowning out the voice in his head that repeats the tenets that he has worked to memorise. The novice’s hand is on the side of his face as their noses bump together, the slight roughness of the novice’s jaw against his own.

He doesn’t realise how tightly his fists are curled in the novice's robes until he pulls away, their foreheads leaning together, breath loud in the stillness of the temple.

“I won’t tell you I’m sorry,” the novice says after a long moment, the warmth of his breath and the warmth of his skin mingling against his face. His thumb moves slowly across his cheek. “But I didn’t....”

The novice trails off, and he closes his eyes, swallowing. He does not know what the novice had intended to say, and perhaps it does not matter. The beat of his heart seems to remind him of the seconds that will pass before he will have to open his hands and let the novice step away from him, and they will have to leave the chamber and go out into the hall; he will have to pass through streets filled with blue-eyed, blue-uniformed soldiers with guns in their hands, and find his way home before the sun has disappeared from the horizon.

There are things that are buried in his heart that frighten him. He knows the yearning that wells within him should be one of them, but he cannot, in this moment, uncurl his hands or stop the voice inside his head that says, _A year._

There is nothing he can do to stop the seconds that pass with every new beat of his heart, so instead he leans forward and kisses him again.


End file.
